


Thicker Than Water

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 08:51:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/796274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flying high over open water, Jim helps Blair to learn more about his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thicker Than Water

## Thicker Than Water

by Mazal HaMidbar

Characters herein belong to Pet Fly, UPN, Paramount and probably others who are not me, dammit.

As always, for SpykeRaven . and with a couple of (hopefully) subtle shout-outs.

This story is a direct sequel to Inheritance, posted in November 2002, but comes significantly before Nightcap, posted in December 2002. All three plus others to come are part of a larger and ridiculously ambitious work-in-progress that (obviously) is not being written chronologically.

This story is a sequel to: Inheritance 

* * *

In the end, nothing would do except that Blair would have to make an immediate trip to Eastern Europe to trace down the mysterious Gitl Sylowitz, who might or might not be the same person as his late maternal grandmother Gertrud Sandburg. 

Blair had emailed Naomi on retreat at her latest discovery, the Mojave Desert, with its Orbitron spiritual center, and, for once, had received a timely response. Blair had gleaned that his mother's mother's family, like that of most American Jews, hailed from Poland; Naomi guessed it probably was from around Krakow. She couldn't provide much more than that; Gertrud had not been forthcoming with details at any point in her life. 

Those who had come from the Old Country had left it for a reason, had sought to leave it behind. But, for a former social scientist, even a little clue was enough to start a large investigation. You can take the boy out of academia, Jim thought, but apparently you can't take the academia out of the boy. 

Jim just didn't see Poland on the Top Ten -- or the Top Twenty, or the Top Thirty, or the Top Forty -- of his hypothetical garden spots. 

"The ex-Soviet Bloc? Not exactly known as a prime vacation destination, is it, Junior?" 

"I'm sorry that my forebears don't come from Tahiti, Jim," Blair had replied. "It would be much warmer, more scenic, and with prettier girls -- or at least more nearly naked ones." 

Jim got a brief mental flash of scantily clad brown-skinned dancers, and to his surprise the image didn't interest him nearly as much as he would have thought. 

"And, of course, in the South Seas, as opposed to the Baltic, we would be logging much more beach time. But what can I do? I've just gotta be me." 

And just as always when Blair came up with an idea, it didn't take much persuading to get Jim to go along with the plan. After reviewing their schedules and their finances, they decided to take three weeks -- short enough that it wouldn't put out their colleagues too much, long enough to find whatever there was to find. 

It had been much easier than expected to arrange for time off. The summer's workload was blessedly slow -- a first since he had come back to Cascade -- and the latest crop of cadets were doing internships, providing Major Crimes with additional manpower. Plus, Simon had agreed that, given everything both of them had been through, he and Blair could use some time off. Moreover, overseas flights were both easier to book and cheaper than he had expected, and with their mutual history of foreign travel -- including the emergency trip to Peru two years before to rescue the inadvertently stranded Simon and Daryl - they had current passports. 

And, upon learning that they were with a major metropolitan police department, the airline had insisted on seating Jim and Blair in First Class at no extra charge. 

The enhanced accommodations truly did have certain advantages, Jim decided, settling heavily into his comfortable seat by the aisle; Blair had immediately claimed the window. 

The flight got under way on time and with no problems. Jim settled in for the duration. 

Besides extra legroom -- always a plus for a man over six feet -- he was pleased that he and Blair would enjoy better food and, moreover, would be able to consume it using actual silverware, as opposed to the TV dinner like fare and plastic utensils that the hoi polloi had to make do with in business class. 

Hell, Jim fantasized, maybe they would even be getting wienerschitzel, or galumpkis, or kielbasa. The rich, meat-heavy cuisine of Eastern Europe was something Jim thought he could easily learn to appreciate, even if other aspects of the trip seemed less than scintillating. He wondered briefly if Blair would give him as tough a time about it as he typically did about good old Cascade's double Wonderburgers. 

For his part, as soon as the flight began, the usually observant - and definitely chatty -- Blair didn't seem to notice the fancy digs at all. He was, as he had been in every spare moment since receiving it in the mail a couple of weeks ago, still engrossed in an atypical type of little black book - Gitl's diary. 

Carefully making note on a mini size legal pad, which he held on his lap along with a pocket-sized Yiddish-English dictionary, Blair turned to the next page. 

Unlike the others, full of handwriting in a typically curly European hand, it was blank except for one sentence in the middle of the page, written in a different color. 

All the rest were a dark blue-black. 

This one was rust-brown. 

"Ich ben Gitl Sylowitz, und ikh bin nit keyn korbm." 

Rust-brown. 

Dark red. 

Blair had been to more than enough crime scenes to know that it looked just like the color of old, dried... 

"Jim," he asked, unmistakably urgent. "Is this what I think it is?" 

And he held the worn little book up to Jim's face. 

"Hey! What the..." 

"Just dial up smell, Jim," Blair said. "All the way, if you have to, go to ten." 

Breaking out of his gastronomic reverie, Jim, out of long-established habit, did as he was told and took a deep whiff. 

He closed his eyes for a minute -- and then shuddered. 

Because, at least to a Sentinel, only one thing smells like human blood. 

"I already know what it is, and obviously, you do too," Blair said, very quietly -- too quietly for Jim's liking. "So the real question is, whose?" 

"Hard to say," Jim said, eyes still closed, not wanting to see the face that went with that too-quiet voice. 

"Whose, Jim?" Blair's voice was now, if possible, even quieter. 

Still dialed up high, Jim suddenly scented an almost unbearably sharp, coppery tang. 

He opened his eyes, then blinked them three times fast, hoping desperately not to see what he knew he was going to see. 

Blair's left hand under his nose, bleeding steadily from four tiny, perfectly evenly spaced holes in the exact center of his palm. 

"Jesus!" Jim shouted, grabbing the fork out of Blair's right hand before he could have a chance to bring the tines down again. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" 

"Whose blood, Jim?" Blair's voice was now a fierce, sinister whisper, as quiet and as expressionless and as frightening a sound as Jim had ever heard. 

"Don't do this to yourself, b--..." And Jim had almost said, "baby" but managed to retract the non-manly endearment just in time. Maybe Blair would think it was merely intended to be either his name or the more socially acceptable nickname "buddy." 

"Then answer my question." 

Jim knew he wasn't going to be able to get out of this. Best to act exactly as what Blair had called him the very first day they had met - a human crime lab out in the field. 

Dialed all the way up, focusing his mind, within seconds Jim was able to delve down to the molectular level. He analyzed the two samples; what he perceived left little doubt. 

He took a deep breath - not to aid his Sentinel abilities but to calm himself - and again pushed aside his concerned roommate self and instantly, expertly forced himself to snap into analytical detective persona. 

"Best guess, comparing yours to what's there in the book, is that it was Gitl's own. Wouldn't have been too hard to write with it, I suppose, seeing as how folks were still using fountain pens in the Forties. To write with, a pen like that could have been filled with any fluid that had a color and could make a mark." 

"That's about what I thought, too." 

Blair's facial and vocal expressions were slowly approaching normal levels, to Jim's silent relief. He felt better yet after finding his clean, folded white, freshly ironed pocket handkerchief -- and sending up silent thanks to Sally for having taught him this old-fashioned custom back in the 70s -- and making a makeshift bandage for Blair's hand. 

The two men sat together in semi-comfortable silence for several minutes. 

"Sorry, man," Blair finally said. "Really. I didn't mean to freak you out or gross you out. But maybe you can understand. Now we know that Gitl and Gertrud must be the same person. I really, really needed to know." 

"We don't know that," Jim replied. "What we do know is that you are a blood relative - literally - of the person whose blood is in that book." 

And ... and ... there was something else, something familiar, now dimly resonating in his mind. But it was something he couldn't define even for himself, let alone tell Blair. 

Jim shivered involuntarily and pressed the cloth down against Blair's palm to stop what little bleeding there still was. And shivered again. 

"I do get it, kid. I really do," he said. "Just be less melodramatic next time, huh?" 

"And once again with the sorry. But, yeah, I will." 

A few more minutes went by. 

Blair silently folded and returned Jim's hanky. 

There was still one thing Jim had to ask. 

"Well, after that mini-ordeal, I guess I really have the right to know what was written there. So you'd better give it up." 

"It's pretty simple, actually. It's Yiddish, of course. From what I can determine, what that page translates to is, 'My name is Gitl Sylowitz, and I am not a victim.'" 

"I don't really think I want to know why she wrote that, or when she wrote that, or exactly how she wrote it." 

"Truth to tell, I would rather not know it either, Jim. And, coming from me, that's saying something. But I have a feeling we're going to learn that and probably a whole lot more in the next three weeks." 

Jim silently agreed. 

It was by then almost dinnertime, which should have cheered Jim up. 

But for some reason, he didn't feel like chowing down on pierogies any more. 

He sat for many minutes, not talking, not really even thinking, just looking across his friend's seemingly smaller-than-ever form and out the window at the starless black sky. 

After a while he felt a gentle pressure against his right shoulder. The intellectual exercise and emotional exhaustion had finally worn down the Energizer bunny, at last, and he was sound asleep. 

By now a bit drained himself, and therefore only half-conscious of his actions, Jim ran his fingers through the unruly dark curls spilling over the back of his shoulder. Then, acting on his inbuilt protective instinct, he took the injured hand and kissed the palm across the four small puncture wounds, once, twice, half a dozen times, and laid it back in its sleeping owner's lap. 

* * *

End Thicker Than Water by Mazal HaMidbar: mazalhamidbar@hotmail.com

Author and story notes above.

  
Disclaimer: _The Sentinel_ is owned etc. by Pet Fly, Inc. These pages and the stories on them are not meant to infringe on, nor are they endorsed by, Pet Fly, Inc. and Paramount. 


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